The Red Cross is providing emergency relief to more than 75,000 people in southern Ethiopia. We need your help so we can carry on distributing food and seeds to those who most need them. Please give whatever you can now by phoning 0845 054 7206 or visiting redcross.org.uk/foodcrisis.
Food, water and sheep: tackling Ethiopia’s food crisis
Source: British Red Cross Society – UK
www.redcross.org.uk/foodcrisis
The Red Cross is delivering immediate emergency food aid to tens of thousands of people suffering acute malnutrition; but staving off hunger through direct food distributions is just one part of a larger overall response.
In Damot Pulasa and Damot Gale, areas in Southern Ethiopia where Red Cross distributions are underway, flooding followed by failed harvests have left many unable to grow enough to feed themselves and their families.
With no food and no crops to sell, families have been forced to eat seeds kept aside for planting and sell livestock and tools to raise money to buy food.
“Unfortunately many of the strategies people are forced to adopt to feed themselves in the short term create conditions where the cycle of poverty and hunger is prolonged. Simply providing food aid helps keep people alive, but it is an unsustainable solution,” said Pete Garratt, British Red Cross relief operations manager.
“As well as providing emergency food aid we are also making sure people’s livelihoods are supported so that, for example, farmers have the seeds and tools they need to be able to produce food for themselves when the next harvest comes in November. Helping people to feed and support themselves means they will not be reliant on indefinite supplies of food aid”
As communities recover, 10,000 sheep will be distributed to farms whose herds perished during the drought, providing a sustainable source of food and income.
Access to water is another issue that, if left unresolved, can feed poverty, hunger and disease.
Currently, nearly half of Damot Pulasa’s 54 hand-dug wells and 13 of the 39 shallow wells are out of operation; people are forced to walk long distances to fetch water. This limited access seriously affects the health of the community – particularly children under five, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers.
The Red Cross is working to re-establish 22 wells and additional boreholes, ensuring reliable long-term clean water supplies, cutting the cycle of drought, poverty and illness that has made the impact of this food crisis so extreme.
“People have been unable to produce food for up to a year because of the floods and drought, as well as this food prices have risen dramatically so even if there is food in the markets very few people can afford it,” explained Lorenzo Violante, International Federation of the Red Cross head of operation in Ethiopia.
“The food distributions we have been carrying out are an immediate life-saving measure, but we are already combining that with a sustainable approach by distributing seeds.
“As the situation develops we’ll be distributing livestock and carrying out water and sanitation work, which not only helps recovery but also builds resilience within the communities; to really help people here for the long term, the solutions to this crisis must be as diverse as its causes.”
To donate to the British Red Cross Appeal visit: www.redcross.org.uk/foodcrisis
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Notes to editors AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEW:
Lorenzo Violante, International Federation of the Red Cross head of operation in Ethiopia.
Pete Garratt, relief operations manager for the British Red Cross, based in the UK
Contact: Mark South 020 787 77042, [email protected]